Upgrading system. . . Needyour Opinion!

[Joecheng]

 

[Joecheng]

This is my current system:
PIII 800
Asus P3V4X
256 MB SDRAM
Pioneer 16X DVD
8X Burner
30 GB hd x2
Geforce2 GTS 32MB
RealMagic DVD decoder card

I want to Upgrade to the following and have a few questions:
Athlon XP 2000+ or Athlon XP 2200+ ?? I'm leaning towards 2000+ because i don't think the 2200+ is worth all the extra money. Am I worng??
ECS K7VTA3 v3.x
512 MB of DDR Ram . . . what brand and what kind?
40Xburner . . . Liteon?
Should I keep my geforce 2?
I plan on keeping the DVD rom, case and power, decoder card. . .
Any suggestions would be appreciated. . thanks!

 

[DeRusto]

leaning towards the 2000+ is just fine in my book, it is generally not the most cost-effective solution to go with the fastest processor


your choice of motherboard seems to be just fine, however, if it were my decision, i would probably look at a board from msi, gigabyte, or soltek as they also provide very acceptable products.

for your ram, i recommend crucial or mushkin for high quality, and dependability. other acceptable companies that i havent personally tried are corsair and sumsung. also, if you are going with a kt333 chipset, be sure to look into pc2700 ram over pc2100.

i would not recommend keeping the geforce2 as it will be a major bottleneck in your system. although, you may find it wise to keep it until the radeon 9700 comes out. the current lineup of cards should drop prices suitably, leaving you with much nicer choices..or you could always drop the dough for the 9700 itself.

i am currently using a radeon 8500le, which is a steal at just under $100, on a gigabyte 7vrxp kt333 motherboard.

 

[Wolfsraider]

A16600 LITE ON 40X/12X/48X EIDE INTERNAL CDRW BURN PROOF W/SW (Retail) Detail Specs $69.00 $69.00

Q027-14-A08523-TEST ECS K7VTA3 Motherboard Specs BUNDLE W/ COOLING FAN & (AMD ATHLON XP 1800+; KINGSTON 512MB NON-ECC PC2100; ASSEMBLE/TEST BUNDLE) $319.78 $319.78

944340 ATI RADEON 8500LE 128MB AGP DDR GAMEPACK (Retail) Detail Specs $116.97 $116.97

Sub Total $505.75
from mwave this would be cost effective

since you didn't give a price quote i took the liberty of considering costs and your preferences
dropped the 2000+ to a 1800+ for price and it still ups your upgrade a gighertz although i am no athlon man so ram is subjective to what name brand they had available and should be decent
the video is decent as it is only a generation older and able to play all the games out now
edit>oops yes i'd get the liteon 40x or if you wanted to save 10.00 then the 32x as it is a good burner
hope this helps
mike